FIBER DEPOLARIZERS

High-performance all-fiber Lyot depolarizers have been released by Phoenix Photonics Ltd. The passive devices provide <5% degree of polarization, <1-dB insertion loss, no backreflection and a wide wavelength operation range. They can be used in fiber optic gyroscopes; optical fiber sensor systems; EDFA pump lasers; and amplified spontaneous emission, superluminescent diode and edge-emitting LED sources; and for optical source polarization randomization. The depolarizers, which are designed to match the source spectrum, use the coherence properties of the source to randomize the state of polarization.